Friday, September 16, 2016

Not Killing Reagan

Since the attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan has been
released, I’ll reprise my review of Rawhide Down from my original post,
slightly altered at the start.

One of my picks for best non-fiction is Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of
President Reagan by Del Quentin Wilber. I remember when the news came in
that President Reagan had been shot. On March 30, 1981, a gunman opened fire on
Reagan with explosive bullets, one of which ricocheted off the presidential
limousine and entered Reagan’s chest. Fortunately, it didn’t explode.

Reagan survived, but did you know:

-The Secret Service did not have professional training until
relatively recently. That’s why during the Kennedy shooting the driver slowed
down after the first shot, the way anyone would.

-When Reagan was in the OR, he took the oxygen mask off his
face and quipped, “I hope you’re all Republicans.” This assured the nation that
he was all right. In reality he was in great pain at that moment, and he had
almost died.

-A doctor in the hospital responded to the call, looked the
patient over, then was shocked when he saw the face. The patient was President
Reagan. Then he realized there were all these men in suits standing around.

-Another doctor was operating on the president. He looked up
and asked if anyone else had been shot. What was going on outside? Had World
War III started? The men in suits stared back at him, saying nothing.

-Nurses stayed with Reagan around the clock, often after
their shifts were done. He passed funny notes to them, endless jokes and quips
written in weak handwriting.

This is a fantastic book on a crucial moment in history. Wilber
notes how professional the Secret Service was: In all the transcripts of their
radio calls that day, they never said that the president was shot, or that
Reagan was down. He had to be referred to by his code name of Rawhide.